[bryony]

I read through that document. The part that I like most about it is where she advocates making the distress caused by being unable to express your gender identity the problem to treat, instead of the identity itself. Profoundly sound thinking.

Yes! The way I see it, PM shifts the problem from dealing with mental problems to coping with the physical changes. It is rightly named "Mirifica" = "Wonderful". It's changed my life. I'm reasonably sure that if I had not come across it, either I would be suffering anxiety until I pegged out, or in desperation go to a therapist who may or may not have given me estrogen (which would have attendant risks of thrombosis etc, and very likely impotence since I couldn't experiment with the dose) on the proviso that I do a "real life" experiment.

This way, I get to deal with the problem on my terms.

When it comes to the crunch, humans developed their sexually dimorphic physical shape long before fashionable clothing was invented. Clothing in itself is a disguise of nakedness. It's not important to me, now, while my mind is calm and relieved of anxiety, to dress in a particular way.

If I was living alone, or 39 instead of 59, with a fair amount of reasonably youthful living left to me, with small children instead of grown children, it might be worth the enormous effort required to pull off a complete transformation. Not to mention the enormous amount of money required to make me feel comfortable enough to present as a female - and most of that cost would not be covered by the UK NHS - money that I don't have.

Most importantly, I have a loving family, a son of 29 (still at home, thanks to the economy) and a daughter of 23 living with her partner but who we see very often. They love their Dad how he is, complete with beard. I've used coping strategies all their lives to shelter them from my problems, and that's not going to end now.

So, my coping strategy now is how I deal with the physical changes, and explain them away.

The way it seems to me is that I've never had the driving force to be a woman, just that I wish that I had been born one. That, plus probably my age, makes it immaterial to me how I present whilst I am calmed. All I really want to do now is get on with my (non sex-related) hobbies!

I'd like to thank everyone who I've interacted with so far. It's extremely helpful to be able to vent like this.

I can see what Chrissie means about support groups - I'm just not able in my current circumstances to go to one. That may change, but until it does, I'm very grateful to be able use you good people as a sounding board!

B. x